Cold to the Touch
by sweet-and-simple
Summary: "Reborn's eyes narrowed, displeased. No one had mentioned that he would be sharing his apartment with a lost soul."


Reborn was a dealer of death. A harbinger, if you would. The sight of him struck fear in the hearts of men and his cold, white bearing of teeth, never quite a smile, drove the weak of heart to their graves with the mere _suspicion_ that it was directed their way – his not-quite smile.

Reborn was, in the mafia world, a hitman. The best hitman. He did not form connections, but only hinted at some preferences. He had no home, but only random, untraceable addresses with no personal touch to them. He had no friends, but only colleagues and comrades that he occasionally worked with or fought against for the sake of honing his own combative or intellectual skills. He was a man of literal mystery, a murderer that faded into the darkness once his job was done, a disease that had no origin and no cure, a wolf that left its sheep clothing behind and freely stalked, unashamed, without mercy, guiltless.

Reborn was a dangerous, cruel man. Even his bedmates would never dare blink in his presence.

It was with this in mind that he stared down the creature before him, a creature in his newest abode, one he planned to evacuate within the next two weeks if his job went according to plan (which, it always did), but his abode nonetheless.

Reborn had always had a difficult time sharing.

In all of Reborn's dealings with death, however, and with everything that he had been possessive of, never before had both qualities clashed so dramatically.

The creature reached out, small hand trembling, fingers tipped blue, huge, fearful copper eyes with purple bags underneath them looking into the obsidian depths of his glare, a messy head of thick, light auburn tresses falling and curling around a pale, chibi face.

The creature's hand passed through his own, leaving a cold tingling behind on his skin, as the creature opened its small mouth, lips blue and quivering, and whispered, "_It's okay_," and then he was gone.

He didn't float away, didn't gradually melt into the wall, didn't sink through the floor, but was suddenly not there.

Reborn's eyes narrowed, displeased.

No one had mentioned that he would be sharing his apartment with a lost soul.

:::

His young and departed roommate made few appearances over the next five days. His contact with Reborn was limited to appearing before him, giving him the same look, trying to take his hand with a trembling hand, and whispering the same words.

Over and over again.

"_It's okay._"

But what was okay?

Reborn did not let himself be bothered by petty questions. Curiosity was a damnable trait of his, even he had to admit to having flaws, but it was one he had tampered with till it was chained beneath layers of self-control and cement and dead conscious.

Curiosity was not part of his job description.

Every once in awhile, though, his curiosity would break through. He always wanted to know more, made it part of his business to know about everything that was going on around him – but he had always passed that off as being careful. It was only intelligent to be aware of his surroundings.

Yes. Awareness.

He typed away at his laptop. This wasn't curiosity, this was just his trying to find out why he had a deceased roommate. The lost soul was, after all, in his temporary territory, and that made it particularly necessary for Reborn to be _aware_. Not curious. Curiosity got the rat killed.

Reborn was no rat.

He researched his temporary address. Found that there was nothing of any importance, at least, nothing that had ever been reported. There was one file, a neighbor implicating that the man next door, in Reborn's apartment, was a pedophile.

She had never had proof to back up her claim, though, and no one had ever looked into it. The supposed pedophile had moved away three years ago, reason unknown.

He looked up the obituaries. Typed in the date three years ago. Sat back and watched the faces and names and small summaries pile up.

The little boy's face was not to be found.

A cold tingle ran up his arm and he shot a look out of the corner of his eye. The creature was watching him with wide eyes, pale, trembling, whispering, "It's okay," and then he was gone.

Reborn stared at where he had stood for a few minutes. "Tsch," was his final reply, and he went back to searching.

_Damn it to hell_, but, he was curious.

:::

He finished his job in ten days, seventeen hours, forty-two minutes, and thirty-five point zero one seconds.

He let his employer know, reminded the woman _kindly_, as he was a chivalrous man and he was above harassing women, even if this particular one did not quite act the part, that she still had to pay the last half of their settled agreement for his services, and then hung up.

Then he went back to his laptop, phone thrown out the window into a passing by garbage truck, his half a dozen email accounts temporarily shut down, and got to work.

A weightless chill settled on his hand. "It's okay."

Not anymore it was.

Reborn glared at the terrified child. "Tell me your name before you disappear."

The child paused for the first time, obviously startled and unsure of what to do, looking at Reborn with awe and fear and every emotion in between. Finally, he frowned. He looked down and away and whispered, as if he was trying to pretend that Reborn had never spoken, "It's okay."

And then he was gone.

:::

As a hitman, he understood that not all deaths were announced. Not every person who died was ever realized to have stopped living. Sometimes, people just went missing. Other times, they happened to run away. It didn't matter that neither case scenario was ever true when it so happened that Reborn was in the picture, but they were believable stories. Let their families hope and dream and pray and wish for their safe return.

It wasn't like they would ever find the bodies.

:::

**Sawada Tsunayoshi**

**D.O.B.: October 14, 20XX**

**Missing: July 14, 20XX**

**Age Now: 7**

**Sex: Male**

**Race: Japanese**

**Hair: Brownish Red**

**Eyes: Hazel**

**Height: 3'22" (97 cm)**

**Weight: 39 pounds (17.69 kg)**

**Missing from: **

**NAMIMORI**

**Japan**

The missing child poster was four years old.

A cold hand rested on top of his. "It's okay."

:::

He searched the apartment thoroughly, looking for something that would tie a lost soul to earth. He checked the bedroom, the bathroom, the living room, checked every cupboard and even in the fridge.

It wasn't till he opened the broom closet that he knew he had found what he was looking for.

He had, of course, checked the apartment when he had first rented it. There had been no lost soul that day, and there had been no bugs implanted in the abode either. He had given the broom closet a cursory look, and then had moved on to check the rest of the apartment.

Now he lifted his foot and kicked it against the floor of the broom closet. Solid. Nothing. With a slight jerk of his knee, however, he discovered that the wall opposite the door was not so thick. The hollowness of it rang back to him, and he narrowed his eyes pleasurably, a mystery about to be busted.

He enjoyed being the biggest mystery of all time. He didn't need to be usurped by a little creature that refused to pass on.

A hand landed on his, familiar by now, and eyes looked up at him.

"Don't go in there."

Reborn, the harbinger, the dealer of death, was preturbed for the first time in years.

The boy tried to grab onto his sleeve but his hands only passed right through him, shooting ice through his veins, an uncomfortable sensation. Something in his expression was desperate. His chibi features were paler than ever before and his tiny frame rattled with deep, shaky, unnecessary breaths.

"Please, don't go in there."

But he was curious, as damnable a trait as that could be, and he wanted to know.

He wanted to know the truth behind the short story of Sawada Tsunayoshi.

And he kicked down the back panel of the broom closet.

:::

_It was always cold behind the broom and mop. _

_His hands were numb, too stiff to stretch or fold, but he held onto his closetmate's hand all the same, with all the strength left in him._

_It wasn't a lot, but it was enough that his friend's muffled cries muted into sniffles, and the slightly warmer hand clenched around his._

"_It's okay," he whispered, because their new daddy would punish them if they were ever too loud. He had said that he would never let them go home and see their mommies if they didn't behave like good little boys. "It's okay."_

_But it wasn't okay. It would never be okay again. Their new daddy was going to separate them and take his friend away. They were never going to see each other again, and he didn't like that. _

_They had been together for nearly a year now, the only playmate the other had had, and it would be hard to not be able to see each other again._

"_It's okay," he said a third time, like things would magically change like they had for Dorothy in the _Wizard of Oz_. They were young enough to believe in magic, to believe in happy endings and princes and princesses and duels with dragons and black stallions that had sad tales to tell._

_But nothing changed. They were still squeezed into the back of the broom closet, still cold, and their new daddy would be coming back to break them apart and leave him behind._

:::

The body was well preserved. Untouched by outdoor elements, undiscovered by predators of the rotting flesh, and kept within a cold, insulated compartment, possibly transformed for such a purpose as this, Tsunayoshi looked as if he could have fallen asleep.

If it hadn't been for bloody marks on the four tall walls around him, the stubs of his fingers, the asphyxiated look on his upturned face, and the smell of urine, that was.

This boy had been left to fend for himself in an airtight, claustrophobic space he couldn't escape from. Judging from the size of the chamber, the boy's lung capacity, and the obvious struggle he had put up to escape, meaning that he had possibly panicked and blindly used up his remaining oxygen faster than he should have, Reborn would say that he had had ten minutes before he would have passed out from oxygen starvation, and then another five before he had been beyond saving.

At the same time, the cold hand on his tightened, tried to hold him, and Tsunayoshi sobbed quietly. "You can't go in there!"

He went in there.

:::

He had made this phone call before.

"Mrs. Sawada, I have called to inform you that your son, Sawada Tsunayoshi, has been located…"

It wasn't his duty to make this phone call, but, sometimes, there were some people he felt deserved the privilege of not having a cop tell them something that didn't concern them.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Sawada. He's dead."

And then he hung up. That was all he owed them. Them, and his roommate, the lost soul.

Tsuna stared at him.

He waited.

"It's not okay," the boy whispered, finally. And then, louder, much louder, _screamed_, "It's NOT okay!"

"When did you figure that out, boy genius?" Reborn sipped his coffee. There was a body on his bed. He didn't plan on staying much longer anyway. "So _dame_."

"I need to make it okay…" Tsuna frowned, seemed to realize what he was saying, and stopped. He brought out his hand, fingers curled into his palm, and something glittered from between the cracks before he turned his fist over, back of his hand facing up, and waited.

Reborn, with a raised eyebrow, held his hand out in turn, open, palm upwards, beneath the other's. Tsuna's hand opened and something cold as fire touched weightlessly against Reborn's palm.

It was a ring. A child's ring with a lion's head on it, the lion wearing a visor, the face a simple carving of a happy feline face.

There was no such band with the body.

"So, take me with you."

This was a piece of a lost soul. Lost souls followed what they knew, what they had cherished in life, because death was not something they knew how to deal with. Death was more than just another stage of being to a lost soul, it was a place full of doubts and pain and hopelessness.

But this ring was a memory. It wavered and flickered in his hand, not the solid object itself, but an ideal.

Reborn eyed it. Curiously. There were jobs he could be doing. Places he could be at. People he could be killing. But the little creature was staring at him, no, glaring at him, full of resolve and unbreakable focus. This little creature knew what he wanted to do more than Reborn knew who was next to say hello to the Reaper for him.

And he respected that.

"Alright," he said, crooned, purred, fedora tipped low over his eyes as sirens blared outside. "We'll leave together, then."

And the ring quaked in his hand, as if caught in violent throes, before it shattered, a thousand splinters of cheap metal, and every shard embedded itself into Reborn, into his being, into his own damned soul, and he felt it like chains attaching to him, telling him for the first time that, _no_, he wasn't alone.

He would never be alone again. Not even in death.

And Tsuna… Tsuna smiled. "It's going to be okay."

:::

_Author's Note: Ghosts have been on my mind constantly lately._


End file.
